Shooting suspect faces 20 counts, $2M bond

Wednesday

Jul 18, 2012 at 12:01 AM

TUSCALOOSA | The Northport man accused of shooting 17 people at a downtown bar early Tuesday morning told police he wanted to die.

By Stephanie TaylorStaff Writer

TUSCALOOSA | The Northport man accused of shooting 17 people at a downtown bar early Tuesday morning told police he wanted to die. “This was an individual that had a series of life-changing events that caused him to lose his touch with reality,” said Tuscaloosa Police Chief Steve Anderson.Nathan Van Wilkins, 44, is accused of opening fire at the Copper Top in Temerson Square at 12:30 a.m., seriously injuring five people who were in the bar. He is suspected of shooting another man at a home in Northport about an hour earlier and then setting fire to his former workplace in Brookwood after leaving Temerson Square.Police conducted a countywide manhunt for most of the morning before Wilkins turned himself in at a FedEx store in Jasper at 11:38 a.m. He has been charged with 18 counts of attempted murder, one count of shooting into an occupied building and one count of shooting into an occupied dwelling. He also will likely face arson charges. His bail was set at $2 million. “The minute we entered the FedEx door, this guy threw his hands straight up in the air and said, ‘I'm the guy you're looking for. I shot all those people in Tuscaloosa,' ” said Jasper Police Capt. Larry Cantrell. “ ‘I wanted Tuscaloosa police to kill me, but I got scared and left before they got there.' ”Wilkins told officers that he had used an AK-47 to shoot into the crowd but had disposed of the weapon.Wilkins' Facebook page included photos of a man with tattoos on his arms, posing with an assault rifle, standing in front of a Confederate flag and making an obscene gesture at the camera. The page was taken down shortly before his arrest Tuesday.Police have not released any information about why Wilkins allegedly embarked on his violent crime spree.Chilling black-and-white surveillance video released by the Tuscaloosa police early Tuesday morning shows a man walking along the east side of the Copper Top holding an assault rifle at his side. The video was widely circulated online and generated many calls to CrimeStoppers, some of which identified the shooter as Wilkins.Anderson said that Wilkins stood on the patio in front of the bar for a few minutes before firing at least 11 shots that injured 17 people. Video shows him turning and walking away in the same direction he approached.Anderson said that at least one person in the bar was the intended target. “The individuals were very blessed that they were not killed,” he said. Three of the victims are University of Alabama students. Police did not release any of the victims' names, but UA spokeswoman Cathy Andreen confirmed that Kelvin Sigler, a former Alabama defensive back who is now an offensive analyst for the team, was treated for a bullet wound to his forearm and released from DCH Regional Medical Center.UA senior Riley Dunn, who was injured in the shooting, estimated there were between 80 and 90 people in the bar at the time.“We were all just shooting pool and hanging out,” said Dunn, whose leg was bandaged from what he described as a shrapnel-like wound. “It was kind of loud from the music, but we heard the gunshot and no one really knew what to think. The first gunshot took place, then about 20 seconds later that's when he really started firing them off. After that everyone really scattered.” Justin McDaniel, who was at the scene with his wife, Heather, and Dunn said there were trails of blood in the area around the Copper Top. While McDaniel was not injured, his shirt had large splotches of other people's blood, from running through the bar.About 50 minutes before the bar shooting, Wilkins allegedly shot a man at a home at the entrance to the Indian Lake subdivision off Watermelon Road in Northport around 11:40 p.m. Monday. Northport police were patrolling the neighborhood before Wilkins was arrested Tuesday while crime scene investigators from the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Office collected evidence at the house.The Northport victim, 30, was in serious condition Tuesday afternoon, but investigators were able to interview him at DCH. He was shot in the back and was in stable condition after surgery, Northport Mayor Bobby Herndon said. The Northport victim told officers he was shot as soon as he answered a knock at his door at 11:40 p.m. Shell casings and ballistic evidence recovered from the house matched evidence collected at the bar, authorities said.Three of the victims from the bar remained in fair condition Tuesday afternoon, one was in serious condition and another was in critical condition, DCH spokesman Brad Fisher said late Tuesday. Authorities believe that after walking away from the shooting scene, Wilkins drove to his former workplace in Brookwood and set two fires at 3 a.m.Brookwood Police Chief Randy Kizziah said that someone pulled three trucks into the building at Capstone Oil Field Services on Alabama Highway 216 and set fire to them before setting fire to a gas well rig about a quarter mile away.Brookwood Assistant Chief Jimmy Sellers pulled a police report that was filed in March when Wilkins was involved in a fight there. Wilkins has not worked for Capstone Oil since March.Anderson said Wilkins had lost his job on Monday, sparking “a downward spiral in his personal life.”Brookwood police looked at surveillance video from a camera at Brookwood Town Hall and saw a truck pull into the business across the street before the fires were started. The truck matched the description of the truck in the police report filed after the fight in March.Brookwood Police and Fire developed Wilkins as a suspect before they heard about the shooting much later, Kizziah said. “We gave TPD the tag number and description of the vehicle he was driving,” he said. “We're going to interview him about the fires when the homicide investigators are done.”Members of the U.S. Marshals Task Force were in the Oakman area interviewing relatives around the time Wilkins surrendered.FedEx owner Ken Barfield said that Wilkins walked into his store just after 11:30 a.m.“He was walking across the parking lot and made straight eye contact,” Barfield said. “It was obvious he wasn't shipping anything because he didn't have anything in his hand. That was a concern off the bat.“He walked in and said ‘Yeah that's me.' I guess when you do something that high-profile, you expect everyone to know who you are.”“I said ‘I guess I need to call the police.' I didn't want to agitate him further. He was sweating profusely,” Barfield said. “I offered him a Powerade (sports drink) from the cooler and told him not to walk toward the police when they showed up. I told him to put his hands in the air.”Jasper police arrived about eight minutes later, he said.Cantrell with the Jasper police said that the department had just received a call from one of Wilkins' relatives, who reported that Wilkins had parked his car at the nearby Walmart and was heading into the FedEx office. Officers were en route when Barfield called from the store, Cantrell said.“About 15 minutes after, the back lot of the police department was filled with U.S. Marshals. It's amazing to me that he was back in Tuscaloosa in less than an hour from the first phone call we received.”Court records do not indicate any previous violent crimes in Wilkins' past. He pleaded guilty to a 1988 burglary charge after he crawled through a hole in the roof of Brown's Garage and stole a Mercedes-Benz 450SL.In 2002, he pleaded guilty to criminal surveillance, a misdemeanor defined as “intentionally engaging in surveillance while trespassing in a private place.” No further details about that crime were included in the online court file.The shooting received nationwide attention. Two news conferences held by Tuscaloosa police on Tuesday were attended by at least four times as many members of the media as usual.